What exactly is the soul?

[Vico]

Adding missing link.

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See reply:

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[yppop]

Interesting. Following your line of thought, I would also note that neurons, as part of the human body which is material, are continuous with matter that surrounds us. It is all pretty much an infinite set of relative interactions within the totality that is the universe.

I agree with the idea that we are part of a unified Whole, a cosmic configuration consisting of nothing but atoms, that can be reduced to electrons and quarks, both of which are “point particles”. I would prefer to use “integrated with” instead of “continuous with” since I use “continuous space” to model the spiritual substance in which matter is hylomorphically immersed.

We may think that the light that has yet to travese the pupil and cause a photoreaction in the retina is “not-me”, but why the restriction? Would your “nous” be restricted in space and time to the body, and thus have dimensions? Does it define the dimensions that define us? Would you consider that it extends as much into the world as do our perceptions and thoughts? Is it undefined, but defining? Would it be who we actually are?

The omnipresent spiritual substance is infinite in extent and is basically formless, but when encapsulated within the metazoan body acquires a finite form within the body and is called “nous”. Although the nous is instrumental in forming the body, by guiding the process of embryogenesis and morphogenesis, it doesn’t necessarily adhere to the form of the body; it is however restricted to the body, hence would not extend into the world. Nous is the substance of the soul. The form of the soul is that of a portal that responds to God’s grace. To respond to God’s grace requires the presence of a mind and its ability to make choices.

Thank you for your response,
Yppop

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Because of the union of body and soul, every thought would produce some physical effect. For example, mental fatigue due to the limitations of the body. Even the most abstract thought would produce, if sustained for some time, extreme mental fatigue. Electrodes were touched to certain parts of the brain, and music was heard showing that these sense impressions were stored in the brain, and I would suspect so would abstract thoughts, because at no time were these abstract thought processes separated from the body but were executed in time, and place, and expressed in the brain as words, sounds. But meanings can only be understood and not sensed. So no physical experiment will reveal a spiritual soul. It lies in the rational mind, or in understanding, which is the function of the intellect, called the mind, and understanding is what is being achieved by Metaphysics,and the appetite of the mind is truth, that which is. There is physical truth, the existence of an object is physical truth. There are non-physical truths, knowledge of languages, science, religion, law, math, self-evident principles, fears and anxiety, peace, love, integrity, and thinking, rationalizing.

Sense impressions are certainly received by the sensory centers of the brain. That is not evidence that they are stored there.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I’ve already mentioned a significant empirical advance over the ancients that has philosophic ramifications.
Namely mechanisms and changes in biological matter evidence “recording” of historical sensible experiences (“sensible species”?) into brain matter itself.
If this be true we do not, like the ancients, need to infer memory is immaterial and hence (according to the ancients at least) has to be an additional power of an immaterial soul.

Surely you can finds these “materialist” (allegedly) observations on the Net for yourself expressed far more clearly than I do here.

The ancients (Aristotle Augustine) do not appear to have even speculated on this potentiality of matter (I would like to be shown mistaken).
Aquinas may have, and he consequently seems to have relegated much of the faculty of memory (ie along with imagination and vis aestemativa) to what we have in common with animals (a power of the “material soul” as some say).

Augustine saw the spiritual image of the Trinity in Man’s allegedly three immaterial powers of the Soul: intellect will and memory. I do not think Aquinas went along with this, one reason being that he seems to have seen memory as in some way “material”. Again I am relying on my Thomistic tertiary studies of 30 yrs ago on this point but I do not think I am mistaken in recollecting Aquinas versus Augustine.

Materialism is an old doctrine, Blue. In the Phaedon, Plato makes Cebes say that when he was young he considered the brain as the source of sensations, opinions and episteme. It seems that the first famous man who thought of the brain as the center of intelligence was Alcmaeon of Croton.

Have you ever read Aristotle’s “On memory and reminiscence”, “On sense and the sensible” and “On the soul”. That guy was really remarkable, Blue.

Now, even with the MRI equipment, which can provide us with experiences that the ancients did not have (I don’t have them either!), we still need to speculate heavily when trying to explain memory, reasoning, conscience…

I will assume, for the moment, that you have had access to a laboratory in which experiments with an MRI apparatus are run. If so, you have observed there screens, and lights, and graphs. You have observed the patients, and their reactions, and their behaviors (the same reactions and behaviors that the ancients could see). What then? Which conclusions do you produce to explain mind without being speculative?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Here’s something. Sheila Nirenberg is a neuroscientist who is trying to help the blind to see using a prosthetic device. In a sighted person, the eyes send coded information into the brain by electrical signals. Researches already knew that the code is in essence a bit stream generated by cells firing in the eyes. Nirenberg is the first to “crack” the code.

4 minute BBC video of Nirenberg - bbc.com/future/story/20141111-the-code-that-may-treat-blindness
Proceedings of National Academy of Science paper - physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/papers/PNAS-2012-Nirenberg-1207035109.pdf
Nirenberg’s home page - physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/

Two points are worth noting. First, this bit stream (on/off pulses) is the only information which ever reaches the brain about what we see. Therefore the “movie” of the world which we see in our mind must be created by the brain from the bit stream alone, since that is the only information it ever has. Our visual memories may well be stored in similar fashion, as a set of pulses, which are then “played back” through the same pathways. It is known that hearing and touch work in a similar way. So there is already a weight of evidence regarding sense memories.

The other point is that those who believe the mind is supernatural generally don’t even try to find cures for blindness or deafness or mental illnesses, since they’ve already decided that the mind is in some immaterial inaccessible realm. Only by first assuming that the mind emerges purely from the physical is it possible to investigate cures to help the millions of sufferers in the world.

Doctor Sheila’s work is simply marvelous. Her emotion moved me.

Concerning your first point: it would seem that, in the end, everything would be “bit streams” (the brains you could see as well; everything!). Where would those sets of pulses constituting our visual memories be “stored”? And what do you mean when you say that they are “played back”? What could be the difference between the real and the imaginary?

Is your second point based on some statistical data, Inocente?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Materialism is an old doctrine, Blue. In the Phaedon, Plato makes Cebes say that when he was young he considered the brain as the source of sensations, opinions and episteme. It seems that the first famous man who thought of the brain as the center of intelligence was Alcmaeon of Croton.

Have you ever read Aristotle’s “On memory and reminiscence”, “On sense and the sensible” and “On the soul”. That guy was really remarkable, Blue.

Now, even with the MRI equipment, which can provide us with experiences that the ancients did not have (I don’t have them either!), we still need to speculate heavily when trying to explain memory, reasoning, conscience…

I will assume, for the moment, that you have had access to a laboratory in which experiments with an MRI apparatus are run. If so, you have observed there screens, and lights, and graphs. You have observed the patients, and their reactions, and their behaviors (the same reactions and behaviors that the ancients could see). What then? Which conclusions do you produce to explain mind without being speculative?

By all means provide me some quotes from the ancients if you think I have missed something in their writings clearly apposite to the simple observation I made below.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Sense impressions are certainly received by the sensory centers of the brain. That is not evidence that they are stored there.

Linus2nd

You think that Aquinas’s “sensible species” is not stored in brain matter and able to be “played back” later?

Would you hold this on the basis of your aposteriori knowledge of lack of empirical research results to date? …

Or is it an apriori principle…which means you do not even need to investigate the scientific research in this area to know it is mistaken?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Summa Theologica

I, 77, a 8, arg. 4

Objection 4. Further, memory is a power of the sensitive soul, as the Philosopher proves (De Memor. et Remin. 1). But memory remains in the separated soul; for it was said to the rich glutton whose soul was in hell: “Remember that thou didst receive good things during thy lifetime” (Luke 16:25). Therefore memory remains in the separated soul; and consequently the other powers of the sensitive part.

logicmuseum.com/authors/aquinas/summa/Summa-I-77-79.htm

Do you really think this piece of Scripture has to be taken only the way Aquinas takes it … and that there are not other Scriptural quotes saying the opposite even more strongly?​

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Interpreting these impulses and retaining them for future reference is a mental or immaterial operation. And this speaks to an immaterial source of interpretation and retention, an immaterial power of an immaterial subject

Even if all memory was about “immaterial operations” (whatever that means),
why would this necessarily require an equally immaterial substance to retain the abiding capability?

Even the natural world shows evidence of immaterial causality that is merely a property of material substance.

We (well those of us who do not believe in the power of crystals) no longer so quickly posit the need for an ether, extraneous powers of the soul, inanimate souls (the celestial bodies) or angel as the ancients were want to do for lack of understanding of valid immaterial properties of matter.

 

[inocente]

It is actually a lot more complicated than described.

When you talk about memory as physical, be aware that it is like the “memory” of the earth held in mountains.
In the body and CNS (name removed by moderator)articular, changes happen as a result of material interactions which last for varying periods of time.

I am not sure psychologists would agree that their field is supernatural.
Most would assert that there is more to science than is dreamt of by narrowly focussed particle physicists.
A mindless psychology is no better than a brainless one.

If you listen to the BBC video, what comes out primarily and chrystal clear is her passion for making a contributing, helping others.
This is what drives that which truly benefits humanity.
The philosophical notion that the mind emerges from the physical is wrong, and definitely is not a prerequisite for seeking material cures.

When people assert that the soul contains memory or the totality of the person’s existence, this does not mean that there are ghosts.
To exist in this world requires a physical body which has spatial and temporal dimensions.
The soul is eternal in the sense of being outside of time.
There is no evidence that it cannot access memories, or perhaps rather have them all present. When we want to remember something we pull in together all the fragments of sensory, emotional and cognitive information, to which specific patterns of cellular interaction, are related. Memory is in the brain as physical-psychological fragments of past experience, but it requires the mind to bring them together. The soul contains both.

I don’t understand your analogy between human memory and mountains. I’m mildly surprised that some posters appear to find memory so mystical that they feel the need to make it immaterial/supernatural, especially when there is so much material readily available online about the various forms of memory and how they work, all of which have moved well beyond the need for philosophical speculation.

For example, here’s an eight-minute video for students giving exquisite detail on the form of memory called long-term potentiation. Then watch this less technical six-minute video on what causes clinical depression. That second video turns out to have been made by Christians for Christians.

Your view appears to separate memories from mind, in a similar way to computer-memory being separate from the CPU. But we are not computers and that reductionism is wrong. As that second video indicates, memories are the mind, you cannot separate the two.

 

[Vico]

Do you really think this piece of Scripture has to be taken only the way Aquinas takes it … and that there are not other Scriptural quotes saying the opposite even more strongly?

At* least *in the way that Aquinas takes it, perhaps there is also another sense or senses. One can also see this belief in memory after death in The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus:

Luke 16:25 And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazareth evil things, but now he is comforted; and thou art tormented.

 

[inocente]

Absolutely! The question is: what do you mean by the “mind” ? I believe that the neurons in the brain are immersed in a spiritual substance called “nous”. Because of this hylomorphic arrangement of “material” neurons and “spiritual” nous, there is a dual memory (agent and passive intellect?) present in the cranium. The mind consists of the “language” function of the material brain and the “translation function” of the nous. Symbols (words, musical notes, signals, etc.) are stored in the neuronal circuits that form the “material memory”. Percepts, concepts, meanings, emotions, feelings, qualia, and memes are stored in the nous as “perceptual memory”. The material memory is digital (discrete); the perceptual memory is analog (continuous).

I don’t see the need for this. It would seem much better to simply assume, as the null hypothesis, that all aspects of the mind emerge from the physical. For example, this has allowed the causes of depression and schizophrenia to be discovered and treated, whereas it’s hard for me to see how speculations about spiritual substances contribute to healing the sick.

*Of course, when a neuronal circuit is formed, it becomes a memory of sorts, but no neuronal circuit however complex will be able to generate the experience of “redness”; it could only act as a referent to the location in the perceptual memory where “redness” is stored. This is what I mean by a translation function, namely, the nous translates the pattern of the neuronal circuits and presents us with an interpretation. *

But you realize this is an appeal to gaps in knowledge. Neuroscience is young and there are lots of things to investigate, one of which is how feelings are felt. You might be skeptical that neuroscientists will ever be able to explain it, but it would seem far too early to throw in the towel and says it’s inexplicable even in principle.

*If what you are asking to be explained is the interaction between an open synapse and the contiguous spiritual component then I can’t, no one can or ever will. We can only offer a plausible description of what we think we observe. That is all science ever does - observe and describe; no one can explain why energy is conserved for example.
Neurobiologists refer to the neurons that carry activation from the sense receptors to the central nervous system as the “afferent” neutrons. I refer to the phenomenon of experiencing qualia such as redness as an “afferent event”. The neurons that carry activation from the CNS to the muscle spindles that results in behavior are called the “efferent” neurons. I refer to my ability to instigate behavior by directing the nous to activate specific neutrons an “efferent event”. Not all behavior is the result of an efferent event, much behavior is the result of “hard wired” reflexive or involuntary motivations. Efferent events are generally the result of voluntary decisions, such events are manifested as the action of the “will”. *

But you must have heard Pauli whispering in your ear “not even wrong” when you said “no one can or ever will” be able to explain your hypothesis, since that means you have ruled out any possibility of testing.

Of course they can do both and if they did perhaps science would escape the intellectual cul-de-sac that they have created for themselves. However as you point out illnesses of the physical variety at least are associated with the “material” makeup of the body and there is no need for non-material answers. However those materialistic scientists who go out of their way to claim there is no need for God because they have all the answers are detrimental to the moral fiber of humanity, a potential greater illness. I wish only that the materialistic scientists grant the possibility of a spiritual component of reality and stop corrupting the vulnerable minds of the young.

By saying “no one can or ever will” be able to explain your spiritual substance, you erected a barrier to research - don’t even bother since it’s forever inexplicable.

Whereas the proposition that the human mind emerges from the physical alone (until proved otherwise) presents no such barriers. Not sure how that denies God or how it might corrupt the young, and there must be many Catholic neuroscientists who see no conflict either.

 

[GEddie]

Innocente,

I imagine that the human-memory/ mountain analogy relates to the fact that the earth’s history is physically recorded in the rock, as can be seen on a mountain, likewise, the life of our bodies, and all the bodies see, etc, is recorded in our heads. This would occur whether or not a spiritual nous/mind was operating.

However, this ignores that while the earth is not an information processor per se, our human head is. I also don’t get how this argues for the immaterial mind (which, BTW, I believe in).

I agree with you that, to an extent, “memory is the mind” and they mostly cannot be separated (there are other faculties).

ICXC NIKA

 

[inocente]

Lot’s of huge assumptions in this article and a number of unknowns. For example, just how do we know exactly what nurons and synapsis do, and how do scientists " see " exactly what is going on?. Do they see this things happening in real time, do they actually see synapses forming, and how do they conclude what they are doing?

Then, " A part of your brain called the hippocampus is vital for forming new memories. Scientists think that the experiences making up a memory are sent from the senses to the cortex, then on to areas surrounding the hippocampus. These ‘bind’ the memory together, before it is sent to the hippocampus itself, where information about context or location is added. " Scientists are making huge assumptions here, forming " conclusions " based on speculation.

Noooooo. You didn’t really take a 60-word introduction on a museum website as the sum total of scientific knowledge? No, no, you couldn’t possibly, I must be misunderstanding you.

I linked a short video on the form of memory called long-term potentiation a few posts back. Here’s the Google Scholar search on “long-term potentiation”: scholar.google.es/scholar?hl=en&q=long-term+potentiation&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

Page after page after page of research papers on that one subject alone. Keep turning the pages. Far more research papers than at which a stick can be shaken.

*Fortunately, I don’t have to say much more than I have already said. Don’t know what you mean by ’ transmitter. ’ I have already admitted that our sense perceptors transfer sensed information to their respective brain sense centers. The conscious mind ( in some mysterious way we will never know ) observes what is taking place, collates the various types of information and stores it in the soul for later reference. And from this point we get into the discussion that has been going on on the thread, " How do we come to know things? "

I fail to see what the conservation of energy has to do with any of this. *

Your view that “in some mysterious way we will never know” would not be accepted in philosophy circles, let alone in science.

As I already noted, there is a lot wrong with this paragraph. As for research papers, I refer you to the 800 years of commentary on Aristotle’s Soul, beginning with Thomas Aquinas himself on that book and his S.T. Part1, ques 78, art 4.

Secondly, why is it necessary that any such information be useful for treating illnesses?

Is treating illnesses the only valuable pursuit for of intelligent men and women?

I think it is fine that some do and have done it very successfully. There is no reason to imply, by contrast, that philosophers/theologians have nothing valuable to offer mankind. A healthy body is wonderful, a heatly soul is priceless.

But of course there are many in the scientific commuinity who have studied some A/T philosophy at least and some who are quite proficient at it, so I don’t see that making an off hand value judgment tells us anything important. I admit it is very difficult to be expert in two fields. So what?

This was your original statement: " The other point is that those who believe the mind is supernatural generally don’t even try to find cures for blindness or deafness or mental illnesses, since they’ve already decided that the mind is in some immaterial inaccessible realm. Only by first assuming that the mind emerges purely from the physical is it possible to investigate cures to help the millions of sufferers in the world. "

I repeat, there is no justification for this statement. As I just pointed out many doctors and scientists believe in the supernatural, not to mention nurses. In fact it was the Catholic Church which began and established hospitals. Though the governments of the world are doing all they can to force us out.

Secondly, there is no proof that only those convinced that the mind " emerges from the physical " could possible in medical cures. These are highly prejucidal statements.

You really must try to restrain you anti-A/T philosophical prejudices, it is not becoming.

That got a bit complicated. My case was more simple. By saying that “in some mysterious way we will never know” you have ruled an entire area off-limits to research, since you’ve already decided it would be a waste of time.

When, last year, a friend told me about Sheila Nirenberg’s research, I found her MacArthur genius award video and couldn’t stop grinning for the rest of the day. Thoughts of which philosophical speculations might be proved wrong never entered my head. It was her faith that she could find an answer, her professionalism, her audacity to do something which I had thought was science fiction.

There is a joyfulness in allowing knowledge to come at you when you can accept it for what it is without feeling the need to continually defend ye olde philosophical dogmas.

 

[inocente]

Innocente,

I imagine that the human-memory/ mountain analogy relates to the fact that the earth’s history is physically recorded in the rock, as can be seen on a mountain, likewise, the life of our bodies, and all the bodies see, etc, is recorded in our heads. This would occur whether or not a spiritual nous/mind was operating.

However, this ignores that while the earth is not an information processor per se, our human head is. I also don’t get how this argues for the immaterial mind (which, BTW, I believe in).

I agree with you that, to an extent, “memory is the mind” and they mostly cannot be separated (there are other faculties).

ICXC NIKA

I think belief in the immaterial mind will gradually die out over the next few generations, as more and more neuroscience enters the classroom, is shown on Discovery Channel, and so on. People will see explanations, and people like explanations. Whereas belief in an inexplicable immaterial mind will only get air-time on those late-night minority channels. Imho.

 

[Vico]

Different authors come from different traditions and have different definitions. Don’t expect consistency in the Bible on either of those words as its made up of 72 different books after all written by many different people over a long period of time.

Church philosophy/theology since the middle ages has been consistent in adopting the view of the soul provided by Aquinas who based himself on Aristotle.

In that view the soul is the “form” of the body. “Form” is a technical concept deriving from Aristotle. Look up hylomorphism. It will do your head in.

Basically, we see that all the operations and activity in living creatures seems to be coordinated and harmonised by some hidden principle we cannot see, dissect or find under a microscope.

Hence, by reason, we infer the existence of some non-material principle that serves to unite, guide and maintain all these bodily operations. That non-material “thing” is Aristotle’s “soul”.

Creatures capable of free-will and reason are said to have a soul that does not corrupt at death. Death is the separation of body and soul.
Personally I have never been convinced, philosophically, that the latter must be true.
Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.

The dogma of faith from Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, reaffirmed at Vatican Council, 1870:Man consists of two essential parts-a material body and a spiritual soul.

*1215 A.D.

Deus…creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium: qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam: ac deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam*.

God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body (D.428)

1870 A.D.

D1783 The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern errors, and the effect of creation] . This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

And the dogma of faith from the Council of Vienne, 1311:
We, therefore, directing our apostolic attention, to which alone it belongs to define these things, to such splendid testimony and to the common opinion of the holy fathers and doctors, declare with the approval of the sacred council that the said apostle and evangelist, John, observed the right order of events in saying that when Christ was already dead one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear. Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.
papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum15.htm#can1

 

[Aloysium]

God’s spirit animates the body forming a unity.
The person moves; the body does not somehow generate a mind and the mind does not use energy to move the body.
There is one person who thinks, perceives and acts.
Mind and body, is in a way similar way to oxygen and hydrogen in the form of water, where neither component moves the other; it is a new being who moves.
If we examine the workings of the body, each sesnsation, each emotion, volition causing muscular action and so on is related to a neurological event.
People who focus on measureable physical quantities and who cannot reflect on their own experience can always say there is no mind.
While they may explain seizures, twitches, and other automatic activities of the body, neurochemical events, while necessary, are not the cause of complex behaviours which have meaning.
Memories are “encoded” in the structure and behaviour of our neural network which is more complex than all the gravitational interactions in the rest of the universe.
It is the person who seeks out the memory (which in a way, is the soul itself), bringing it together in a specific way, as it does other things such as seeking to walk, talk and otherwise act in the world.
I believe memory is contained in the soul as the totality of who the person is in his relationship with others and with God. Something like that anyway.
That’s my :twocents:

 

[Blue_Horizon]

At* least *in the way that Aquinas takes it, perhaps there is also another sense or senses. One can also see this belief in memory after death in The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus:

Luke 16:25 And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazareth evil things, but now he is comforted; and thou art tormented.

You are seriously trying to find philosophic truths in trivial detail of a parable?
Do you also believe there is physical water in Hades also?
And if so wouldn’t that mean physical bodies and brains too?
Which still gives a material explanation for memory in Hades doesn’t it…
But really, this is just a misuse of Scripture methinks.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The dogma of faith from Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, reaffirmed at Vatican Council, 1870:Man consists of two essential parts-a material body and a spiritual soul.

*1215 A.D.

Deus…creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium: qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam: ac deinde humanam, quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam*.

God…creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body (D.428)

1870 A.D.

D1783 The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern errors, and the effect of creation] . This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

And the dogma of faith from the Council of Vienne, 1311:
We, therefore, directing our apostolic attention, to which alone it belongs to define these things, to such splendid testimony and to the common opinion of the holy fathers and doctors, declare with the approval of the sacred council that the said apostle and evangelist, John, observed the right order of events in saying that when Christ was already dead one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear. Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.
papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum15.htm#can1

Why are you quoting me?
And what exactly are you rebutting - I do not deny human nature has a soul, though I do suggest memory need not be posited as requiring a substantial power of it and so different essentially from the soul of animals in this respect.

 

[ynotzap]

Sense impressions are certainly received by the sensory centers of the brain. That is not evidence that they are stored there.

Linus2nd

Sense impressions are stored in the brain. We understand by associating words,(sound which is a sense impression) with other mental concepts which are also associated with words (sound). The soul can abstract meaning from these sounds, and can be impeded from these abstraction from sound (words) if the brain looses it’s physical capabilities because of the union of body and soul (two separate substances united) the soul in this present mode of existence is extrinsically dependent upon the brain. When the soul departs the body at death, there is no need for memory, or dependence on the brain or any physical substance. As I understand it, the intellect will be infused with knowledge, and see immediately, no longer restricted by matter. (We will know, as we are known) When we have a lapse of memory, something impedes the brains’ function, if we had pure spiritual memory, why is it that we can not employ it when we have physical lapses of memory? If both memories co-exist.? Memory is only needed because of the physical limitation of seeing all at once, and restricted by the limitations of matter and change, time. Animals have sense memory, and are biologically programed, but do not rationalize with abstract concepts. Humans by learning these programs, instincts that were not taught to the animal but are natural to them can control their behavior. We humans can make individual choices as to our behavior, even contrary to our natural behavior which is to act rationally.